"The lean years"

[steve-in-kville]

From past polls on age demographics, the vast majority are around age 40 and above, with a few below that age. At that age, most have lived long enough to experience financial difficulties, whether through a national recession, personal hardships, or some other cause. I would imagine that in almost every situation, people manage to pull out of it, things get better and perhaps some lessons are learned.

But one thing I have gleaned from both my own experiences and listening to others tell their stories: those experiences stick with you. It may even mold you are today, and it should have an impact how you view others that are struggling.

I have no real agenda for this thread, although I am sure I will be along to tell stories later. Feel free to share your insights, experiences, observations, and so forth.

[Ernie]

My only lean years were those when I decided to leave home and "frontier" on 10 acres of woods in Arkansas. I always liked the idea of frontier-ing and wanted to try it sometime. Didn't have a lot of money and needed something to live on while also spending months developing the property. I was also teaching at Calvary Bible School at the time and other ministry endeavors that did not result in a lot of income. During the development stage, I got married.
Unfortunately, a neighbor decided to buy the property next to me, cut down some older growth forest on the property, and build 12 chicken barns on it. His property was the nicest tract of land in the county, at the top of a bluff, with a beautiful view of the valley. This devalued my property and ruined our plans for what to do with it. Cabins/counseling/etc.
So we soon moved east to be nearer my family and my handicapped brother.
I would not exchange the frontier-ing experience. But if you want to "save" a property, you might need to get your friends with similar perspectives to buy the properties around it.

[Grace]

Our lean years were when we were young, newly married, starting a family, etc. We were attempting to start a business as well, that required purchasing equipment, then buying a house, me quitting my job when our first child was born, etc. Our debt was large. But we learned many cost saving habits which we still practice today, even though we probably wouldn't need to.

[steve-in-kville]

Thank you for sharing that. As a follow up question, do you regret those hard times? Was it an asset later in life? Or still to be determined?

[Ernie]

Thank you for sharing that. As a follow up question, do you regret those hard times? Was it an asset later in life? Or still to be determined?

Hard to say... From a financial perspective... I wish I could have bought a house 10 years ago rather than waiting until this year when prices are now double.

Growing up, my family had barely any extra finances as my dad was a teacher in the pioneer days of Christian day schools. And in those days, there was little vision for paying teachers a living wage. But we were never hungry and never without clothes and never without shelter. I think it is good for children to be raised at the edge of poverty (or living as if they were poor) as long as they get healthy food, etc. Not sure that I needed more of that as an adult, but my younger years did prepare me for living with less, and I value that to this day.

The frontier-ing expedition was mostly a "being the person I was created to be" sort of venture. Having some lean years in order to be able to frontier was worth it just for that. At one point, I needed hernia surgery on both sides. I asked to be anointed with oil and prayed for, and one of the reasons for this was that I didn't have any extra money. God healed me. So that was a faith builder.

6 1/2 years ago a brother in our church asked me, "Why aren't you a church planter, if that is what you think you are called to do?" I told him that I need to spend my days making a livelihood. He said, "Real church planters don't wait on funding. They just do it!" I decided to take his challenge seriously.

A few months later, our church blessed us to take a trip to China to meet with people we had been discipling.

A year later we were up against a wall... our ministry labors had increased and we wanted to do more, but I couldn't afford to take off more time to do it. I discussed this with my wife and at lunch time we asked God for direction in knowing what to do about this. At 2:24 that afternoon, I received an email from a church in another state. Here is how it read... "I am writing to ask if there may some way in which we could bless you and the church in the ministry of reaching out to international students. The Lord blessed our church some years ago with funds to assist in reaching international students...we do not feel comfortable with the funds being idle..."
The timing could not have been more providential. And this church has been sending us an annual gift ever since.

So learning to depend on the Lord is definitely something I learned during the lean years.

[steve-in-kville]

So learning to depend on the Lord is definitely something I learned during the lean years.

That is an amazing story!

Things like this should be a thread of its own.

[MaxPC]

My "lean years" include fleeing from the German blitzkrieg of Great Britain. It certainly taught us early that there are truly worthwhile worries and planning; and the rest is pettifogging crumbs and hypocrisy.
Stay calm and disciple on.

[RZehr]

In 2007-2008 I was doing a lot of construction work tract/spec builders. When the real estate crash happened they couldn’t pay me. No work left to do either. We struggled around until 2011. Then I closed my business, liquidated my equipment, sold real estate, paid all my supplier debts. My equipment was paid for. Hard to shut down a business and lay off good employees. Painful to sell heavy equipment and real estate for the low prices at the time because of so few buyers. We rented a house for cheap from Dad. Then got a $12.00 an hour, 72 hours a week warehouse job. Lots of $18 hour overtime.

But one thing I have gleaned from both my own experiences and listening to others tell their stories: those experiences stick with you. It may even mold you are today, and it should have an impact how you view others that are struggling.

100%
I am a lot more conservative with debt and cash now than I was in 2006. I’d say it permanently changed me in the ways you mentioned.

[mike]

Our lean years weren't as bad as some since my debt wasn't crushing, but the first years of marriage were tight. I was making around $18,000 a year teaching private school plus what I could make in the summer. Once I borrowed money from my dad for heating oil, and my wife and I worked after school at my dad's store to help make ends meet. A year after we got married, our son was born via emergency C-section which our church helped us out with, but he was allergic to milk and needed a special formula that cost us around $400 a month. But those were great years. We had time to shop at thrift stores, yard sales, and auctions for stuff we needed, and remodeled our fixer-upper house as cheaply as we could. We drove old cars (still do, mostly), and I learned how to fix various things myself with the help of my father-in-law and my neighbor because I couldn't afford repair technicians. I wouldn't wish to have had it any differently.